To Catch a Firefly

by Emmy Sanders

Taking a step forward, I tip Lucky’s chin. His eyes catch mine and his lips pop open, and when I lean down to press my mouth to his, his fingertips dig into my arm. Not pushing, though, holding. I’ve never kissed before, either, but Lucky deserves a first with someone who loves him. At least I can give him that.

“If you ever decide to love someone,” he says slowly, “they’ll be very lucky.” He already is.

“But we’re not done,” he says vehemently, stepping into my space. “We’ll never be done. Me and you, we don’t have an ending.”

“Not everyone is going to understand you, Ellis. But it’s not your job to make them.”

No, this isn’t our end. Never that. But it is goodbye.

I was ten years old when I met Lucky. I knew it then, and I know it now. He’s a firefly. Luminous and wild. He was never meant to be trapped. Not here and not with me. And in a few days, I’ll finally watch him fly away.

I think it was at thirteen that I first felt my heart beat for you. And break, just a little. Because I knew, like that tornado, you’d leave destruction in your path, and I’d be your willing victim. I’d do it again. I love you, my brilliant firefly.

“He’s your anchor,” Danil says quietly. “No,” I whisper, my eyes lifting to the full moon. “He doesn’t fight the tide. He controls it.”

In my weakest moments, I wish you’d stay. I wish you’d hear the words I could never bring myself to give. I wish you’d know the deepest secrets in my heart and, somehow, share them in yours.

Finally, I say, “When you’re…gone, you… You share your life. With me. Your adventures and… And your joy.” I set my gaze on the corn as I go on. “It means the world to me, Luck. To be a part of that. I… Please don’t stop just…just because I was…” Scared, I can’t say. I can’t. I let out a small breath before continuing. “I don’t ever want to lose…the place I have in your world.”

“Have you ever wanted someone so much,” I say slowly, “that it feels like your atoms are vibrating when you’re away from them? Like you’re half of a whole, and your body knows it. And until you’re in their arms again, every single piece of you is straining toward them because…because they’re your home. They’re part of you. Your beginning and your never-ending. How? How do I move on from that?”

If pressed to come up with a single word to describe the onslaught that hits me the moment Ellis’s lips crash into mine, I would pick landslide. Have you ever seen a mountain give way? Seen the rock face sheer off in the force of nature’s demand, trees and dirt and tons of once-steady terrain rushing toward the ground, unable to fight the tide of gravity? That would describe this moment. Sweeping. Earth-shattering. Destructive in the best possible way. Unstoppable.

With the moon lending its soft glow through the window, Lucky falls asleep. And I learn what it is to cradle a firefly in my palms.

And every time I stayed away a little longer, it felt like I was losing my breath. Like I had less oxygen in my lungs. I was starved of it without you,